


Comfort and Joy

by steelneena



Series: CR 2 Oneshots and Short Series [34]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: All The Tropes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkwardness, Caleb is a dramatic dumbass, Car Sex, First Meetings, Grand Gestures, Hand Jobs, Homelessness, Loneliness, M/M, Please Don't Take This Seriously, Tarot, Tension, Winter's Crest (Critical Role), but in the canon world, inappropriate insinuations, it's just a stupid christmas movie plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: Caleb's smart. He's never claimed to be wise. And inviting the fellow who's reading Tarot on the roadside on Winter's Crest to stay with him in his home is most definitely not the wisest thing he's ever done in his life.But its the right thing.So, Caleb does it anyways.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Series: CR 2 Oneshots and Short Series [34]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1280990
Comments: 32
Kudos: 120





	1. 1. Comfort




It’s the time of the year when Caleb wishes he didn’t exist. Everything would be easier. Watching the industrious shoppers, the beaming families, the happy couples…its punishment. Self-imposed, of course, which is why Caleb exists.

Because he can never make things easy on himself. That would be too kind.

So, Winter’s Crests come and go, and still Caleb finds himself out walking the snow-covered sidewalks of Zadash in the middle of the holiday bustle, hating every moment of it all the while. Not because he hates the holiday – really, that’s the farthest thing from the truth. For one, it’s a foreign holiday anyways, brought over into Wildemount mostly out of commercialism, and secondly, this time of year is confluent with all the most cherished memories of his childhood.

Golden in the light of reflection, he cannot stand to hate the holiday, to hate what his mother and father so enjoyed. So instead, Caleb focuses on hating himself.

(Which is cheating, because hating himself? That’s easy. But it’s certainly not kind.)

The evening is bathed in a soft golden glow from streetlights and shop windows. By now, most of the mingling holiday-goers are safe within the confines of whosoever's house they’re visiting that year, gracing with festive cheer and well wishes and general merriment. The wind isn’t so bitter as it was in the Blumenthaal of his youth, but then he’s just far enough south of the Zemnian border that the chill never really sets into the bones.

It doesn’t, however, make walking around in the phantom streets and more comfortable.

He’s just turned up his collar and stuck his hands in his pockets, when he notices the tiefling.

Lilac is a odd colour on a tiefling, certainly not common, but Caleb thinks that this tiefling would stand out regardless.

For one, he’s just about as ill dressed for the weather as one could get. Wearing only a white button down and a pair of leggings, the tiefling appears to be packing up…something. It’s then that Caleb notices the sign.

FIND YOUR FORTUNE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

TAROT BY TEALEAF

PAY WHAT YOU LIKE – IT GOES TOWARDS ROOM AND BOARD

Throat tight, Caleb keeps walking. The tiefling is just pulling on a coat – lightweight, not near warm enough – when Caleb comes up on his spot and hesitates. As if sensing a bite, ‘Tealeaf’ turns on him.

“Looking to have your fortune read, friend?”

Red eyes glow unnervingly in the hazy twilight. He’s handsome, for…well, he’s just plain handsome, and Caleb cannot deny it.

“Ah,” he stammers, pulling out his wallet. It’s the least he can do. “Nein, but here. Stay somewhere warm tonight.”

He drops two twenties into the wooden bowl still sitting on the curb, nods and starts forward again, trying not to pay attention to how Tealeaf’s shining canine worries at his lip, or the furrow in his brow.

“Wait. That’s awfully generous of you. Please, let me read your fortune. I do all sorts. Past, present, future. Love readings. New Dawn’s readings. Financial. Familial. You name it, I can do it. And you, my friend, sure look like you could use some direction.”

Caleb stops in his tracks at the accusation. It doesn’t sound like such, all lyrical and whimsy from the stranger’s mouth, but Caleb can hear it there, mocking him all the same.

“Three blocks north and another two to the right you’ll find a shelter.” He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t dare look into the face which would reflect his own internal skepticism. “They should still be open. And a soup kitchen too. Please, get yourself a warmer coat. The air is not forgiving this time of year.”

But Tealeaf doesn’t relent. “You’ve been generous. One card. Just one. Ask a question and I’ll give you the answer. Quite literally the least I can do, or I swear to all that’s holy, I will reverse pickpocket these twenties back into your coat.”

Caleb rounds on him, stalking into the stranger’s space. Instinctively, Tealeaf leans back as the wave of anger, misdirected but dangerous all the same, comes crashing into him. “You will keep the money. And you will leave me be. I don’t want to know the future. I don’t care. Just, take your money and go find someplace warm.”

But Tealeaf stands his ground, fine brow raising archily over his youthful visage. Though he can’t be all that much younger than Caleb, Caleb feels ancient compared to the fresh face before him, however reproachful. “Don’t care about the future, hey?” Oh and there’s challenge and taunt in that tone. “You gave me a twenty and told me to take care. You care about my future, probably the future in general. No, my friend, I think your problem is you care _too much._ ” A finger jabs in the direction of his sternum, as if to punctuate the point. “What’re you afraid of? One measly card. You know, they don’t tell the future at all. They just help you reflect and make informed decisions. So if you’re worried about what you find, well, the only thing you were ever really afraid of is yourself.”

That time, even for the lissome way his foreign accent caresses the syllables, Caleb can tell Tealeaf meant it as an accusation.

“Fine. One card.”

A self-satisfied smirk slides oily over Tealeaf’s handsome features.

“Step lively then, Mister…”

“Caleb.” He doesn’t know why he offers his first name. Doesn’t know why he offered a name at all, and yet, there it is, brought forth without any cajoling to satisfy the whim of a perfect stranger.

“Step lively then, Mister Caleb, into my-“ Tealeaf gestures to the frost glistening sidewalk. “-parlour, and we shall see what we shall see.”

It’s evident that he’d been mostly packed up by the time that Caleb walked by; almost everything is in packs. Caleb can tell from the lighter dusting of snow where a myriad of items had originally sat on the ground, or the bench behind him, but Tealeaf doesn’t waste any time unpacking. He digs into the backpack with no ceremony whatsoever, and pulls out a little velvet bag, which he opens, sliding a deck out into his hand. They’re beautiful cards, from what little Caleb can see in the dim evening’s light. The backs are a dark navy? Maybe black? dotted with little golden stars at equivalent increments.

“Now Mister Caleb,” Tealeaf says, shuffling them with practiced ease. “You’ve agreed to a reading, paid good money for it and exchanged some good words too, so that means you’ve signed up for a proper experience. Now, without setting everything back up and wasting your good, hard earned free time, I’ll do what I can to make it _special_ for you.”

As quickly as they’d slipped into his hand, Tealeaf drops the cards loose into the pocket of his jacket. “Your hand, if you’d be so kind, Mister Caleb. Have to warm up the energies so that you can pick the card what tingles _just_ right. And that’ll be _your_ card then, understood?”

By what power, Caleb knows not, he lifts his hand, bewildered at his own actions. It’s tentative, shaking, but rising through the air, and before he knows it, Tealeaf has caught him by the wrist with one hand and taken his palm with the other, rubbing light circles around the perimeter. It _does_ tingle; strange, in a way he’s never felt before. Like it ought to tingle, but doesn’t.

“Stimulating the senses. Channeling the right though here. Best way to make an informed pick. Of course, I already told you there’s no magic to it, but what’s a little fortune telling without showmanship and a little bit of tradition. Traditions get that way for a reason, wouldn’t you agree?”

Nodding, senseless to his actions, Caleb watches the contrast of colour on his skin. He’s pale always, of course, but in the winter his skin might as well be blanched white, save the windburn on his cheeks, nose and knuckles. Contrarily, Tealeaf’s hands look soft as the lilac petals their colour so belays, but his fingers on Caleb’s skin feel calloused.

“There now, tingling yet?”

Speechless, powerless, Caleb only nods and Tealeaf lets go his hand, though it remains there, hovering as if in stasis as the fortune teller brings out the deck once more and spreads them out in his hands, wide as he can without losing a one.

“Close your eyes and run your hand face down in the air over the cards and when you feel it, stop and point.”

It’s stupid. Senseless. Dangerous even. Here’s a perfect stranger, destitute on the street, and Caleb willingly shuts his eyes in front of the fellow anyways. What compels him he couldn’t say, but the phantom touch, light but rough, on his palm lingers as he passes his hand through the air.

He does feel it, doesn’t know what exactly _it_ is, but feels it all the same. It’s too late to realize that he hasn’t even thought of a question when he stops and points, finger falling on the cool surface of the card in question. Gingerly, he pulls it from the deck and holds it up.

“Ah.”

The single sound is enough for Caleb’s eyes to fly open.

Tealeaf stands before him, looking pleased.

“Seven of Cups,” he says, as if it ought to mean something to Caleb, as if the weight and gravity Tealeaf gives the words can make the card make any sense. “Tell me, Mister Caleb, order and hard work are nice, sure… but isn’t it so much more fun to just…let go?”

No. It’s not. It must show on Caleb’s face, because Tealeaf smiles.

“You’re as well put together fellow, all things considered. You like things just so. I bet you even fold your t-shirts a certain way, don’t you? Order and practicality run your life because you’re afraid to let anything else get the edge on you. Maybe it’s time to let loose a bit. Let down your hair, get a little lax. There’s no room for opportunity in a rigid world, only the same old, boring, been-there-done-that-humdrum, and quite frankly, if you just stay in that routine, you’ll kill yourself with it.”

Like he’s been sucker punched, the air leaves Caleb’s lungs.

“Live a little, Mister Caleb. Death comes in many forms and stagnation is one of them.” There’s a finality to Tealeaf’s words, like he’s just sentenced Caleb at a trial. It leaves him feeling almost nauseous and he doesn’t know why. This time, if Tealeaf notices Caleb’s change in mood, he makes no note of it, slipping the card _la-tea-da_ , simple as you please from Caleb’s weakened grip on it and sliding it back into the deck. As he squares up the edges and works them back in the bag, he looks up, catching Caleb’s gaze head on. “I hope that answers your question.”

It’s all Caleb can do to breathe, so instead he simply stands there, silent and unmoving like an utter fool. Minutes pass. Logically, he knows it’s only two, but it’s still _minutes_ and all he’s done is stare and breath and look positively strange as Tealeaf finished packing up, grabbing his soggy cardboard sign last.

“Hey, Dazed-and-Confused, you gonna be alright?”

Which is stupid, because Caleb has a warm home to go to, and a cat and a handful of people he’s been informed are his friends, and a job and, and, and-

And Tealeaf – the one underdressed for the season and to all appearances homeless – is asking _Caleb_ if _he’ll_ be alright.

It takes precisely forty-three seconds for Caleb to answer him and by that time he’s already sauntered a few paces down the road.

“Wait.”

From behind, Tealeaf’s causal posture straightens, his spaded tail swishing the only indicator that he’s even a little ill at ease.

“You-you do not have to go to the shelter. I have a guest room and no guest to fill it. It’s Winter’s Crest tonight. It is,” he parrots back. “the least I can do.”

Tealeaf’s head cocks to the side and then he turns, if only by half, to look at Caleb quizzically. Now that darkness has truly fallen, his ruby shined eyes are even more lustrous and unnerving. If Caleb shivers, it has nothing to do with the cold.

His face, so sure only moments ago, twitches a little, uncertain. “Why should I?”

With a puff of air and an inelegant shrug, Caleb shakes his head. His jaw works, but no neurons spark, no information jitters through his nervous system, and no words form for all the trouble his body is going through to make it appear as though they should. Finally, he blurts the first thing that comes to mind.

“I have no idea.”

Tealeaf’s brows dip a bit and his lips press into a thin line, but his tail stills from it’s back and forth flicking.

“You are a strange one. Pretty, but strange. I’ll take you up on your offer, that is, if you haven’t come to your senses yet. Anyone ever tell you you could do with a few lessons in stranger-danger?”

“I could say the same for you. Afterall, you are the one consenting to come into a stranger's home for the night.”

The most gods-awful laugh erupts from Tealeaf, who throws his head back, curls bouncing, snowflakes shook from his locks at the movement. “You’re a riot. You’ve got electrical outlets, don’t you?”

“Ja.” Caleb shakes his head, confused. “I do. Whoever does not?”

“Well, my phone needs charging and sure as shit you better believe I’m calling someone to let them know where I am.”

Caleb blinks. “I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“If you have someone to call why-”

“Am I out here?” Tealeaf cuts him off. Caleb’s halfway to apologizing before he stops. The words formed impulsively, were uttered unthinkingly, impolitely, but there’s not an ounce of bitterness or reproach in Molly’s tone. “Well, hows about we walk and talk? ‘cause I’m getting just a little chilled here, Mister Caleb. But,” he adds, holding up a finger. “An even exchange is in order. I tell you why I’m out here, you’ll have to tell me the same. Take it or leave it.”

With a deep breath, Caleb forces his feet to move. “I take it.”

“It’s a deal then.” Tealeaf holds out his hand as Caleb reaches him. Biting his lip a bit, Caleb hesitantly takes it. Tealeaf’s grip is firmer now, than before, though no less insistent. “Mollymauk Tealeaf, Molly to my friends. At your service, Mister Caleb. Now. Which way are we headed?”

By way of answer, Caleb pulls his hand away, stuffing it safely in his pocket before leading on.

“I am…I apologize. For earlier. That was… I am not usually so nosey.”

Tealeaf – rather, _Mollymauk_ only shrugs, nonchalant. “It’s a fair enough question. Well the answer is because she lives, well, _quite_ a distance away, and though she’s got a roof over her head, there’s no way she can afford to come get me, so I’m making my way to her. But don’t go thinking she wouldn’t move heaven and earth for me if you were to turn out to be some sort of serial killer or something.” It’s a joke, clearly, and Caleb allows himself the freedom to chuckle a little at it before continuing the line of questioning. 

“Family? Friend?” _Lover?_ The thought crosses his mind unbidden and he banishes it, flustered. Mollymauk is handsome and his personality …distracting. And he’d called Caleb pretty, but stupid thoughts like that are dangerous and Caleb knows better. He _does_.

Though it certainly doesn’t feel like it at the moment.

“Well, neither really and yet both.” Once more, Mollymauk shrugs. “It’s not really complicated, it’s just not _that_.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Caleb doesn’t ask him to. With a firm hold on his wayward tongue, Caleb only nods. “Some people defy categorization.”

“That’s an accurate enough assessment, yes.” From his peripherals, Caleb sees the corner of Molly’s mouth twitch up. ““So here I am, naught but forty-"(he nods in Caleb's direction) "-and change to my name, working my way to her instead.”

It’s an answer. Not a whole answer, not a satisfactory answer, but neither of those things had been part of their bargain and Caleb’s not really that interested in giving a whole or satisfactory answer to the question himself. It’s this reminder which keeps him silent.

“I do not like the holiday.”

It’s _still_ a lie. Nothing happened in the time since he last thought about how much of a lie the statement was and now to change that.

If Mollymauk notices, he says nothing again.

“It is a bad time of the year for me and my misery seems to prefer isolation to company. So instead I walk around and look at other people being happy and then go home and continue to be miserable.”

At least this time, Mollymauk has the courtesy not to laugh at him. “Fair enough. I understand the tendency towards masochism. Well, now you’ve got some company, though I wouldn’t term myself miserable. So I guess, I’m enabling your self-punishment streak. You see, I happen to love Winter’s Crest. So if that’s going to be an issue, you might as well let me know so I can still head to the shelter without spending a second longer out here than I have to.”

“No. I think you will do just fine.”

It’s _stupid_. The fifth stupid thing he’s said and/or done since stopping to dig forty dollars from his wallet, and he doesn’t usually do stupid things like this with such astounding frequency. But the only change in his routine – even the mental phrasing makes him shudder, thinking of the card and Mollymauk’s thumb against his palm – is Mollymauk and Caleb refuses to believe he can be reduced to, to… _this_ in a scant fifteen minutes.

Nervous, he watches Mollymauk out of the corner of his eye, sees him stifle a laugh and suck his lips under just a bit.

“Well then. A match made in Elysium.”

The sudden heat at the tips of Caleb’s ears is just the windburn and nothing else.

Silence overtakes them. True silence. The city is deserted. There’s not a sign of an inhabited car all the way down the road and they’re too far from any real natural presence for there to be the occasional hoot of an owl. Only the wind shushes through the alleyways, rustling a stray newspaper here or there.

It’s stifling, even though it's not precisely uncomfortable. All the same, Caleb feels the innate need to fill the silence with something other than, well _silence_.

“I have a cat,” he blurts. “I hope that is not a problem.”

This time, Mollymauk does laugh again. “Believe you me, Mister Caleb, even if I were allergic, I’d take sneezing at a cat to sleeping in a bunk room or outside any day.”

Feeling stupid, Caleb nods. Of course he’d rather take the cat over any other option. The longer they walk beside one another, the more convinced Caleb grows that this is a mistake, that he ought to turn and lead Molly to the shelter instead, or point and scream and then run away to hide in a dark corner while Molly’s back is turned.

Needless to say, neither of those things come to pass.

Awkwardly, Mollymauk coughs. “The cat have a name?”

“Ah, yes, Frumpkin. He is a very indulgent fellow. He is quite the attention whore, actually. So be prepared, for I am afraid you will find him bothersome, allergy or no.”

“Little furry companions are sweet so long as they’re not mine, so don’t get yourself in a tizzy. I’m sure we’ll make fast friends.”

“Ja,” Caleb replies, absently, mind fixated on an image of Frumpkin nuzzling beneath that lilac chin. “I am sure you will.” It takes physical willpower to banish the daydream from his mind. He doesn’t know where the fantasies are all coming from. Logically, there’s no good reason for them. On any given day, Caleb meets at least half a dozen people he finds equally as attractive as Mollymauk, but his flights of fancy have long been limited to the few and far between. Taking him home – bringing. _Bringing_ him home – feels like taking advantage in some strange, unreasonable way. Especially since Molly doesn’t know the ridiculous things Caleb’s thinking about him. They’re not even perverted. They're just…intimate. And stupid.

Something must catch Molly’s eye because he turns his head, dangling rings from his curved horns jingling a bit. It is beyond Caleb’s control to stop himself from turning to look, to see this abject stranger, beautiful in the golden backlight, and appreciate the point of his thin nose, the height of his cheekbones, the characteristic jut of his chin in the silhouette.

It’s only then that it strikes Caleb just how lonely he’s really been.

“When you said there were more forms of death, what others did you have in mind? Aside from stagnation and actual death, I mean. Of course.” If Molly is perturbed by the abrupt line of questioning, Caleb cannot tell. Calm as ever, he turns away from the storefront window and they keep pace with one another easily.

“Isolation. Fear. Self-delusion. Willful ignorance. That sort of thing.”

“Dour subjects for this happy time,” says Caleb, aware of how hypocritical he must sound, but the edge of irony softens the duplicitousness of the statement.

“You asked.”

“Ja. I suppose I did.”

“Any particular reason?” 

Caleb bites his tongue and shakes his head a little. “We’re not far away, now.” They’ve turned away from the more metropolitan borough, now merging and blending with rows upon rows of apartments; most of them are decades old, and the duplex in which Caleb lives is no different. It’s not ramshackle, nor run down, and the Brenatto Family who lives above him make every day adventuresome, but they are not there now, away in Felderwin for the holiday week. As cozy and homelike as Caleb has managed to make the place over the years, it is empty without the Brenattos. Cold and impersonal. 

Quickly, before he can lose his nerve, Caleb opens the little gate and steps aside, inviting Mollymauk to pass within. There’s no hesitation in Molly’s stride, though there’s something tight in his face as he crosses the threshold within the little garden - too small a patch of grass to be called a proper garden, but there’s no other word for it, Caleb supposes. 

The key fumbles between his numb fingers, but Caleb manages the lock anyways, and the last barrier between them falls. Behind them, the door clicks shut. How remarkable Mollymauk looks within Caleb’s unremarkable home. Earthen colours brighten Molly’s explosive riot of tones, a patchwork of motley sewn poorly onto Caleb’s monochrome life. 

“Nice place,” Molly says. It’s bland, common, but somehow Caleb understands that Molly means it, genuinely. Maybe it’s just because the interior is warm. Caleb tries not to overthink it the same way he’s been overthinking everything else. 

“Ah ja, danke, come in. You can just...set your things there for now. Can I take your coat?”

It’s a stupid question; while his house is warm enough, the jacket that Molly wears is now obviously less a true jacket and more an item of clothing than anything else. The sort of thing one wears under a proper coat, not _as_ a coat itself. It’s made of a thin, silky material, embroidered with all manner of symbols with which Caleb is unfamiliar. Upon closer inspection, Caleb realizes that they are almost certainly hand stitched, lovingly. Had Molly done as much himself? Or had this been a gift? Or bought at a time when Molly’s life was different?

“No, I’m good.” Molly sets down his pack by the door and follows Caleb’s suit, toeing off his boots. “Thanks kindly though.” 

“You, ahh, would you care for some hot chocolate? Or tea? Something else?” he asks, feeling awkward as he hangs up his own coat beside a few others. Does he really need them? No. No, he doesn’t but he remembers well what it was like when he- “I have not eaten dinner yet, if you would care to join me.” 

Carefully, Mollymauk blinks. “We only made a deal for an extra bed, friend.” 

“I am offering. You are under no obligation to join me.” 

He blinks again. “I could do with some food. But I’ll have you know I’ve not been starving yet.” 

“I am aware that you do not require charity. This is not charity. This is selfishness,” he admits, rather abruptly. “and nothing else.” 

Mollymauk stares intently at him, as if really seeing him for the first time all evening. Which is funny, because Caleb’s never felt so transparent in his life as every time Mollymauk has studied him. Those piercing eyes hold him transfixed, a butterfly pinned for examination. Scientific and intimate all at once, Mollymauk’s scrutiny slices him open, bares his fears and doubts and insecurities as sure as any dissection. 

“The kitchen is this way. Please, make yourself comfortable.” 

Molly follows him wordlessly, a little like Frumpkin, who is surely asleep on Caleb’s duvet, right beneath the vent showering hot air down upon the spoiled little creature. 

Immediately, Caleb makes for the cupboard where the teas are kept, and the hot chocolate mix too. “You did not say before. Your preference.” 

“Oh. Hot Chocolate, please. With cinnamon if you don’t mind.” 

Delighted to have something industrious to do with his hands, Caleb sets to it, pulling the ingredients off the shelf and grabbing the kettle to fill it with water. It’s good to be busy. He’s always found that the worst moments are when he has nothing to occupy his time. Nothing to think about, nothing to read, nothing to study, nothing to do. 

Pondering, in those empty moments, are the most dangerous moments of his life, when he thinks the most dangerous thoughts, designs the most dangerous ideas. 

Things like asking Mollymauk to spend the night in his home. 

The water’s just been set on the burner, sparked to flame, before either of them speak again. Predictably, it isn’t Caleb. 

“You have upstairs neighbours? 

“Hmm?” Caleb glances over his shoulder, away from the mugs he’s been preparing with spoonfuls of the mix. His own is a mug shaped like a cat’s head, with little ears poking up on either side, face painted in a cutesy little squint and happy smile. The one he’s chosen for Mollymauk is simple - a pottery piece, gorgeously glazed and bought from a farmer’s market one year. It’s a rich, chocolate brown to match their drink of choice. 

“Do you have upstairs neighbours?”

“Oh, ja. My friends, the Brenattos. But they are away visiting family.” 

Mollymauk’s eyes narrow. They seem to do that a lot, like he can tell that Caleb is speaking around things, though, why that matters to him is beyond Caleb’s ken. 

“And you’re here alone.” 

It’s not a question. 

“I told you, I don’t hold with the holiday.” 

“Right,” Mollymauk replies. “So you said.” His fingers drum on the table in a gathering rhythm. “So why am I here, then?” 

Caleb swallows hard. “Because you agreed to come.” 

“Yes, but you invited me.” 

His hands curl into fists, shaking. If the countertop weren’t a solid object, his determined gaze could have bored a hole through it. “Why does it matter?” 

He can practically hear Mollymauk shrugging in the silence behind him. “Just curious. But it's none of my business, so I’ll just leave you to it then.”

“If I had known that you would be so frustrating a houseguest,” Caleb replies senselessly. “I would not have invited you.” Had there been bite to his words, they might have gotten him in trouble; as it stands, he simply sounds tired and Mollymauk - curse him - only laughs off the halfhearted insult. 

“So says everyone I’ve ever had the pleasure to be the houseguest of.” 

Slowly, the pitch of the kettle increases. Caleb focuses on it rather than on Mollymauk and his staring. 

“What do you do, if you don’t mind my asking?” he asks eventually. “For a living, I mean?” 

Caleb’s smile is thin. “I work as a research assistant at the college. Old Empire history.” 

“Mm. You look the studious type.” The drumming of his fingers hasn’t stopped. “Like you could crack open a book and lose yourself in it forever. Or documentaries.” 

At that, Caleb cannot stifle his laugh. “Ja, the tables are turned. I am not usually the focus of study.” It only hits him too late, precisely what it is he’s said. The spoon clatters out of his hand and loudly to the counter, just as the water begins to really whistle.

Mollymauk says nothing, and Caleb can’t decide if he’s grateful for it or if he’s rather they not push the awkwardness of it all under the rug, an ugly eyesore. An elephant under a bedsheet.

“The _water_ , Caleb.”

Steam rushes in shoots from the spout and he flies to the stove, clicking the burner off and grabbing at the handle, heedless of the heat on his hands. He’s had worse and it’s not like he’d actually grabbing metal, but all the same he only moves it to one of the other burners. The muscles of his shoulder release when the high pitched whine softens, but the ache that settles at the base of his skull remains.

“Are you alright?”

The question hits him out of the blue and he finally turns, which is also stupid, because then Molly can _see_ just how not alright he is. And the worst part is he doesn’t even know _why_. Not really. It’s just stupid con work. The tarot. Molly admitted as much. A cold reading and some dramatic flair, nothing more, nothing less.

So why does it feel like his world has shattered open before him.

Caleb glances around the pristine kitchen, at all the things in their places. It’s not utilitarian; on the contrary, it’s warm and cozy, but nothing is unkempt, nothing is askew. Nothing in his house is. Not one thing. His life, perfectly structure to the point of boring.

Because, if its not, it he doesn’t hold perfect control over everything else in his world, then the things he cannot become all the more unmanageable.

For a fleeting moment, Caleb wishes he’d taken Veth up on her offer and gone with the Brenattos for the holiday.

Grimly, without a hint of humor, Caleb laughs, shrugs, (definitely pretends to miss seeing Molly’s eyebrows shoot for his hairline) and pours the water over the hot cocoa powder, stirring as he goes, and chasing it with a sprinkling of cinnamon, just as requested.

He sets it down before Mollymauk wordlessly, leaving the spoon, because he knows by force of habit that it’s far too scalding to be drinkable at the moment. The making of his own drink goes faster and he leaves it where it is in favour of digging around in the fridge for the leftovers Veth gave him before they’d headed out the other day. Turkey, sweet potatoes mashed, green beans almondine.

“You are not vegetarian?”

“Hmmm? No. Meat’s good.”

For a while the only sound is the clinking of Molly’s spoon against his mug and the shuffle of Caleb around the cupboards.

“You can tell me,” Molly says when Caleb’s portioning out the potatoes. “I’m a stranger. The pressure is off. Whatever it is that’s eating you up inside, you can tell me, and I’ll listen, no judgement.”

Grip tight, the hand Caleb keeps around his heart constricts. Against all rational thought, Caleb wants to do exactly as Mollymauk has suggested. What should it matter to spill the darkest secrets harboured inside that innermost chamber, to pour them forth at Mollymauk’s feet, to feel free and unburdened if only for once?

“I think, by your measure,” he says as he puts the first plate in the microwave. “I died a long time ago.”

“That so?” The drumming of his nails has stopped. Caleb doesn’t know when it happened, but he noticed it now. Molly doesn’t feign interest, but neither does he sound as though he’s hanging on Caleb’s ever word, which would have seemed easily more insincere than anything else.

“I am lonely.” He doesn’t set the microwave, turns and slumps against the counter. “I have made myself so on purpose, _because_ I want to be not lonely.”

“More masochism, then.”

“Ja, I suppose.”

“Can I confess something?” Molly asks, out of the blue, just as Caleb’s convincing himself to returning to prepping the microwave.

“I don’t see why not.”

“I’m lonely, too.”

Caleb looks up from his toes on the linoleum; for the first time since they met, Molly isn’t looking back when he does. Instead, he seems far more invested in the patterns on the wood, tracing them with one fingertip.

“Being alone and I aren’t friends,” he goes on, and there, there is Caleb’s own dark chuckle mirrored back at him. “People wonder sometimes, imagine, what the worst part is. It’s not the cold, not the discomfort, I can take those. No, the worst is being alone. Like people are looking right through you and not seeing you at all. Like you’re not even there. Like _I’m_ not there. But, being lonely…that’s not death.”

With acute detail, Caleb memorizes the slow lift of Mollymauk’s head, the way he runs his hand through his short curls, pushing them back between his horns, the half lidded solemn blink.

“Being lonely means you know that it’ll kill you if you keep on going as you have and you don’t want it to. Being lonely means you want to do something about it. Life and death? That’s in what you do with it. You asked me here, Caleb. You’re not dead at all. You’re clinging hard and fast. That’s _life_. That’s _survival._ Trust me, Mister Caleb. I’d know if you were dead, and you’re not. You’re not.”

Caleb’s nails bend with the pressure against the under edge of the tabletop where he grips them white-knuckle tight. “Then why do I feel like I am?”

Molly stands, hot chocolate abandoned and walks up to him, laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently. “Only the living can feel, Caleb.”

All Caleb can do is stare at Molly’s lips. Though he’s young, there are lines at the corners of his mouth that give him a determined air. They’re chapped and a little raw, but there’s a sheen over them like he’s at least got a Chapstick stashed somewhere on his person. All the same, Caleb’s suddenly overwhelmed by the impulse to kiss him.

But it’s unfair and wrong and driven solely by desperation (and at least physical attraction, for there is nothing unattractive about Mollymauk’s looks). With Molly standing so close, there’s nothing Caleb can do to avoid him except to turn his head, which he does, trying to ignore the hot blush of shame that sears up his neck to his cheeks.

“I think you feel rather a lot. In fact, I think you feel so much you wish you couldn’t feel anything at all.”

He’s close, but not so close that Caleb can detect the hot puff of breath through his hair. That’s only supplemented by his wild imagination.

“What business do you have telling me what I feel and what I do not feel?” Caleb strikes back, but it’s no use. Anyone with half a mind would know just by looking at him that he’s given up the ghost entirely.

“Only the business you’ve given me. Forty dollars for a tarot read and instead you take me home with you. Have to admit, I’ve been wondering just exactly what that might end up entailing.”

The sudden beeping of the microwave causes Caleb to flinch embarrassingly strongly, but Mollymauk ignores him in favour of reaching to his right to pull open the door and retrieve the plate. It’s steaming between them, the only thing holding them apart and with one last lingering glance Molly takes the plate to the table and sits back down, waiting. 

It’s a testament to how ridiculous Caleb feels that he immediately rushes to get the appropriate silverware for his guest. It’s to his smallest relief that Mollymauk does not immediately laugh at him for it. Despite everything, Caleb finds that Mollymauk, though he’s not precisely been kind, is not cruel either. After all, honesty, no matter how much it hurts, or how much it helps, is neither kind nor cruel, it simply _is_ and above all, Mollymauk has been blatantly, unrepentantly honest.

Managing to control the infernal tremble in his hands, Caleb lays the silverware in their appropriate spots flanking the plate and then backs away from Mollymauk’s orbit to reheat his own dinner. 

“Bitte, do not wait on me,” he waves his hand as he turns his back on his guest. “Eat it while it is good and hot.” 

_Während es heiIß ist, ißt es, Caleb; lass das Buch loss._

Caleb loses himself in the sudden recollection. The smell of his mother’s perfume, the way her hair fell about her shoulders, framing her face, the sparkle in her eyes even as she reprimanded him with a firm tone. It crashes into him, overwhelmingly. 

A long ago Winter’s Crest Evening, curled up on the couch with his first Frumpkin, book in hand, absently petting the cat as a curl of fragrant aroma aroused a rumble in his stomach which he’d steadily ignored. Practically sleepwalking, nose still in the book, Frumpkin curled around his shoulders, how he’d moved like a zombie to the table and settled into the chair. 

The soft caress at her admonishment, unpolished nails blocking his view of the words painted over each page as she’d wrested the novel from him. A present he’d been given earlier that evening, already half demolished. 

_Zerstörst deinen Abendbrot, nicht deinen Roman._

“Did you say something?” 

The lyrical tone breaks through the clouds that fog Caleb’s brain. “Ah, nein, just speaking to myself.” Once more, the microwave beeps and Caleb is spared his dignity, but no longer can he put off the inevitable. 

Taking the plate and his own silverware, Caleb finds his seat across from Mollymauk and sets to eating. For a while, there’s silence. Molly eats the way Caleb expected. It’s not as fast as it could be, though it is by no means slow, but it’s guarded and lacks the ambivalence he usually puts off. The air of someone who has starved in the past and knows that every last morsel could be the last in a long time. 

Caleb remembers that ache more intimately than any lover’s touch. The emptiness within physically only serves to highlight the emptiness that came from without. 

“It’s good,” Mollymauk says finally, between mouthfuls. “Nice spice. You make it or-?” he points with the butt end of his knife up at the second floor and Caleb, stuffing a spoonful of sweet potatoes into his mouth to avoid answering, simply nods. “So they look after you then.” 

“Mm.” He swallows. “Ja.” 

“You need a lot of looking after.”

Caleb’s not sure if it’s a statement or a question. Maybe somewhere in between. “Veth thinks I do.” 

“Fair enough.” He takes another bite. Swallows. Repeats himself. “It’s good.” 

More than anything, Caleb wishes that he, like the chocolate in their mugs, could simply melt away into nothing. It would certainly be easier than existing if he could, so of course, he can’t. 

“They are good people.” If he thinks back hard enough on their limited conversation so far, Caleb’s almost positive that he’s said this before, though perhaps not quite the same way. It feels odd, like there’s suddenly a growing wall between them that didn’t exist before when there was, well…nothing between them. 

They’re still strangers, Caleb reminds himself. 

But now, there’s intent. And Mollymauk gave voice to that intent.

Caleb clears his throat a bit. “There is more, if you are still hungry. Please, I will not be able to get through it all by myself as it is.” 

Mollymauk doesn’t even blink, nodding as he pushes a slice of turkey onto the prongs of his fork with his knife. Much like Caleb does, he hold the fork with the prongs down as he brings the morsel to his mouth and Caleb wonders were he learned to eat in such a fashion with his heavily foreign accent and his passer-by ways. Like everything else, such a question nearly escapes his lips, but he restrains that question. Strangely, it feels more personal than any other question he’s asked of his guest this far, and _unlike_ his guest, he is not looking to make their dinner more uncomfortable that it already is. 

“Maybe some more potatoes,” Molly shrugs. “You full well loaded the plate up though. You’re not like that witch from those old Zemnian tales, are you? Where you fatten me up nice and all and then feast on me instead.” Thickly, Caleb swallows, but Mollymauk is outright laughing in his face. “Apologies, I know, I’m crass and uncouth.” 

“It is all a part of your… charm.” Sarcasm flows easily and Mollymauk accepts the remark with the gracious dip of a head. 

“You’re very sweet.” 

For the first time, there is no thinly veiled doublespeak, no salacious underpinnings to the comment. Caleb cocks his head, brow furrowed. “Danke. I do not necessarily agree with you, but it is clear you find me so. I find you…” _Alluring. Mysterious. Stunning. Intimidating._ Eventually Caleb settles on none of those things. “You are very…honest.” 

A barking laugh greets the compliment. “Well, that’s a first. But I’ll take it.”

With a little more viciousness than he first intended, Caleb spears a few beans. “You don’t pull punches. I appreciate that.” 

“Again, you’re the first.” 

Somehow, Caleb finds _that_ harder to believe than Molly thinking he is sweet. 

“People tend to think I’m a right arse, and well, I _am_ , so…” 

“Oh,” Caleb replied instantly. “We are not debating that. I did not say you were not an _arschloch_ , only that you are honest. The two are not precisely mutually exclusive.” 

Amused, Molly leans back in his seat, and Caleb is treated to the swath of bare purple skin at his beck. “That so? Well. Be that as it may, you haven’t said if you appreciate the honesty or not. Maybe I should stick to the more…conventional avenues.” 

“You mean lying.” 

“Of course.” 

Pretending to think for a moment, Caleb puts a hand to his well-trimmed beard. “Well then, I cannot exactly give you advice when I have not yet sampled your wares, if you understand my intent.” 

Something changes in Mollymauk’s expression that Caleb can’t put a finger on. 

“You want me to lie to you.” Gem red eyes fix him solidly in a stare almost as intense at the first when the card was pulled. 

“Ja. At some point tonight, I want you to lie to me, and we shall see if I can tell. And then, I will tell you which of your angles is the more palatable, hmm?” 

Half a smirk forms on Mollymauk’s lips. “You have a deal. Shake?” 

The hand extends to him across the table, and Caleb considers it tentatively. It’s more, somehow than just an outstretched hand. All the same, Caleb reaches back. 

Hands clasp.

The world doesn’t end. 

“Deal.” 

It’s as simple as that, and then, it’s over. 

Dinner is finished in silence. They stand at once, stop, stare at one another, each reaching for the other’s plate. Blushing, Caleb looks down, but takes the china in hand regardless, Molly passing it to him in the end. Their hands don’t brush. 

He doesn’t know why he wishes they had. 

“Danke.” 

“Least I can do is help with the dishes.” 

Pointing at the dishwasher, Caleb smiles as Molly nods his head in an ‘ah’. “I thought, anyways, that the least you could do was give me a tarot read?” he replied, a little coyly, surprising himself. “It would seem that this then is not the least. Bitte, sit. I will handle this. You are my guest.” 

Mollymauk gives him a slow blink, hand still on the plate, but acquiesces, relinquishing it and sitting back down. 

“It would appear I am.” 

All through Caleb’s loading of the dishwasher, Molly seems to take in his surroundings a little more thoroughly. Whatever discomfort there had been between them is mostly dissipated as Caleb falls into the mundanity of the routine. There is just something... _nice_ about not being alone, no pressure to talk to one another, but still feeling the presence of another in the room. Existing at once, but orbiting around one another instead of intermingling.

It is only in the culmination of the activity, in the space that would serve as a transition where they would have to come back together again, that leaves Caleb tensing his fingers. 

“I will not be sleeping for some time - I make no assumptions about what you would prefer. But…” Oddly, Caleb feels transported back in time to the first time he’d asked Astrid to a dance. “I am going to sit in my living room. Normally I would read a little, but I do not know if I’m really in the mood. Perhaps...if you-if you would like, you could pick a film? If you wanted to! Only if you wanted to,” he rushes to clarify.

The smile that finds its home on Mollymauk’s handsome features is the first wholly genuine one Caleb thinks he’d seen from his guest yet. A sensation rather like the tickle of Frumpkin’s purring vibrations on his skin creeps into his abdomen. 

“Yeah, I think I’d like that. Been a while.” 

“You can pick whatever you like. I, ah, haven’t got a lot of selection, but…”he trailed away, feeling awkward. 

“No worries,” A light shines almost amusedly in those inscrutable eyes. “I’m sure I’ll find something that’s to my taste.”

Caleb looks away so quickly that he’ll never know if the once over that he imagines Mollymauk giving him was real or not, or if he even wants it to be.

“I’ll just meander about then, till I find the living room.” The way its phrased, it’s clear to Caleb that Mollymauk is telling, not asking, and he nods curtly, still busying himself with the dishes, only half out of real need, the other half out of absolute desperation to simply look more preoccupied than he is. When his guest finally wanders off, Caleb isn’t sure, but by the time he’s managed to get a hold of his senses enough to look up, he’s alone in the kitchen. Not even Frumpkin has stayed behind with him.

The incurable loneliness he feels does nothing to aid him in schooling his fainting racing heart.

Briefly, Caleb images pulling out his cell phone and calling Veth to tell her just exactly what he’s done, how foolish he’s been. Mollymauk could fair well rob him blind in the night – consider Caleb’s own past, he knows that it is not beyond possibility, though he doesn’t begrudge Mollymauk were he to attempt to do so. Surely, Caleb thinks, he’s done far worse than Molly has. Anyone would be hard pressed to, he knows. It’s the truth, and he’ll readily admit to that much, if only to himself.

Yes, unsupervised, a stranger with nothing to lose roams about Caleb’s inner sanctum, heedless of the company he keeps.

Caleb imagines telling his guest just what sort of person he’s decided to put his good will in.

But Veth’s sad eyes preclude him from doing anything so rash and instead he sets the dishwasher, wipes down the countertop and then heaves a deep breath before making his way to the living room.

The way the floorplan is laid out, there are two ways to enter the main area. From the left hand side of the front door, or from the back of the space, which opens into the dining area. Conveniently, the kitchen doorway straddles halfway between and Caleb pauses for a moment, uncertainly. The couch faces the front of the house, the tv settled rather inconveniently right before the front windows. But there’s no better place to have situated it, so there it has stayed. Beneath it, in the cabinet, are his meagre collection of films, a few of which are seasonal, but he doesn’t know Molly, or his preferences, and cannot for the life of him imagine what film it will be that he’ll have picked out.

In the end, Caleb chooses to sneak through the hall and around. For a while, he simply stands there, watching Mollymauk crouched before the entertainment system, rifling through the films, pausing every once in a while to pull one out and puzzle over the box.

Feeling rather like a freak, Caleb deliberately steps on a loose floorboard. It creaks rather suddenly, and though Mollymauk’s tail swishes widely out behind him, he does not show any other signifier of surprise at his host’s approach.

“You’ve an awful lot of these tapes. What’re they called again?”

Caleb bites his lower lip. “Ah, VHS?”

“Right. Yeah. Somehow seems to fit you, if you don’t mind my saying.”

Really, Caleb doesn’t. Mollymauk isn’t wrong. He’s about to say as much, when, rather gracefully, Mollymauk rises to his full height – it’s considerable, Caleb recognizes now. They’re perhaps the same height, but somehow, Mollymauk feels taller. Perhaps its in the confident way he carries himself, the set of his strong shoulders, the jut of his fine pointed chin.

Caleb shakes himself out of it.

“Found a film. I’d put it in, but…”

“Ah, ja, apologies. Please, make-“

“Myself comfortable? You’ve said as much.”

And he has. Once more, he’s repeating himself and it’s all Caleb can do not to blush furiously at having it pointed out to him.

The tape he’s handed is a familiar one. One of few seasonal films he owns, it was released after he lost his parents, and so, is acceptable to keep within the house. Veth adores it, which is of course why he still has it. Striding to the right side of the room, where he had to run all the cords, and thus where all the actual electronics had ended up. As he presses the tape in; he can hear, acutely, the sink of Mollymauk into the old sagging couch, fabric against leather, the casual shushing as he situated himself.

How long since someone else sat on his couch?

Mostly, he went up to Veth’s, not the other way around.

With more force that strictly necessary, Caleb pressed the buttons on the remotes to set the VCR in motion and the screen blinking statically to life.

He sets everything down and turns.

He should have prepared himself.

It’s one thing to hear and envision, it’s another to see.

Lounging rather comfortably, long legs outstretch, heels propped on the coffee table, Molly has most _certainly_ made himself at home. Caleb takes in his practiced ease, his languorous nature, the relaxed posture indicative in the tilt of his head and the slow downward slope of his shoulders.

Eyes darting to the chair, Caleb stops to grab the blanket from where it hangs over the back.

“Heir.” He holds it forth and Molly looks up with a small smile.

Caleb lifts a brow. “Get cozy,” he directs with a subtle humor before settling in beside Molly on the couch, a safe distance between them. “It has been a while since I watched this.”

“Yeah?” Molly asks busy draping the blanket over himself. Drawn to the curiosity evident in that single word, Caleb looks away from the opening commercials to his companion, whose face is alit with the blue glow of the television. He looks ethereal and Caleb can only half believe that this is happening, that he hasn’t fallen asleep in the midst of rereading _A Winter’s Crest Carol_ , and that before him is instead the ghost of Christmas present in all his spangled glory. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it, but I thought the picture on the cover looked amusing enough. You seem like you could use a laugh and good one never did me any harm either.”

“Ja, _Home Alone_ is very funny. I am sure you will enjoy it.” He looks back at the TV, just in time for the feature presentation screen, but a small movement – the half expression of a breath – catches his attention and without moving his head, Caleb’s gaze darts beside him, catches the last syllables of the title as they whisper silent as drifting petals off of Mollymauk’s plum coloured lips cast turquoise in the light.

Caleb doesn’t know what to make of it, but lets it go in favour of paying his attention to the movie instead.

Periodically, as the movie proceeds and Kevin McCallister’s exuberance turns to loneliness, Mollymauk’s terrible cackling laughs (the first had practically shocked Caleb from his seat, but really, he finds them terribly endearing for their genuine nature) grow fewer and farther between until the only sound is the occasional puff of his breath and the mechanical whirring of the VCR and the crackling undertones of the VHS behind dialogue and soundtrack.

Vaguely, Caleb wonders what Molly is thinking about. Wonders if Molly thinks the same thoughts he does.

And it suddenly occurs to him, right in the middle of Kevin’s conversation with his elderly neighbour during the choir practice, that while Caleb’s wish to have his family for the holidays will never again come true, Mollymauk’s wish doesn’t have to go the same way as his own.

Frumpkin chooses that moment to hop up on the couch, curling between them. Without even blinking, Mollymauk moves his hand to stroke the cat from nose to tail. Trilling, Frumpkin rubs up against Mollymauk’s hand, begging for more. Mindlessly, Mollymauk assents. For a while, Caleb just watches them together, thoughts swirling as he considers the possibility, considering how he can possibly word the offer.

Xhorhas is not so far away by car, not really, not with the autobahn. And it isn’t as though Caleb is _doing_ anything else. It should be, he considers all the times they’ve said it tonight, about the ‘least’ they can do. It’s Winter’s Crest and he’s taken in a stranger, fed him, provided him with a bed and shelter, even a cat to pet, but to bring him to his home, to provide that one thing which nothing else can slake…

Before he knows it, all the best parts of the move are through. Dazed with thought, Caleb’s missed even the most raucous of Mollymauk’s laughter as the two goons attempt to storm the McCallister home, and Kevin is staring out the window, watching his neighbour reunite with son and granddaughter.

The end credits roll and Molly’s saying something about really having enjoyed the move when Caleb cannot contain it within himself any longer.

“Tomorrow,” he interrupts Mollymauk in the middle of whatever sentence he was vocalizing. “I will drive you to Xhorhas.”

Music is twinkling just a little off key as the tape tries to track through lyrics about family, but Mollymauk is staring at him in shock, mouth open, eyes…something. Something that Caleb cannot even begin to fathom. Like he’s suggested that Molly stand up and dance the bunny hop nude or something ridiculous. Suddenly, Caleb realizes that he’d not phrased it like a question at all. But words to explain do not come.

Mind blank, Caleb just waits as Molly seems to process the…directive.

“Would you kindly say that again?”

Caleb swallows hard. “I will drive you to Xhorhas tomorrow. To be with your friend.”

“I don’t need you to do that.” It’s sharp, like a retort, almost affronted, save that there’s not an ounce of vitriol to Mollymauk’s tone. Not one hint of it on his face.

“No.” Caleb confirms. “I want to do it.”

“Why?”

 _Because I can_ , but that’s not something he can say. So he doesn’t. Silently, he lifts Frumpkin, whose batting paws go unheeded by Mollymauk in the moment, and plops him down in his own lap, comfort for the anxious energy that’s built up in his hands.

“I want to do it,” Caleb says again, instead. Why should Mollymauk need to know why? It doesn’t matter, not really. All that matters is that he will be _home_ where he belongs. And maybe, just maybe, if Caleb can do this for someone, he himself is not so totally beyond saving too.

For another long stretch, Molly just stares at him. The red pools glimmer silver with he blue light of the tape deck come to a stop, but they’re as inscrutable as ever. Like the baubles on a Winter’s Crest tree, they reflect Caleb in distortion instead of opening a wider window into Mollymauk’s inner thoughts. How lucky, Caleb considers, for such an ingrown defense, that one would ever know what he was thinking from his eyes alone.

“No,” Molly says, but what it means is just as much a mystery.

“‘No’, what?”

“That’s too much. I can’t accept.”

It takes a moment for Caleb to realize that the pained noise is one of his own making. “You will not be beholden to me. I _want_ to do this for you. I can, and so I want to. Why should I not?”

Mollymauk shakes his head in disbelief. “You don’t even know how far into Xhorhas I’m intending on going!”

“It does not matter.”

“It does too.”

“No, it does not.”

They stare one another down, both merciless, Caleb realizes, and for the first time, he wonders if his serious nature will not be enough to outstrip this adamant stranger.

“I’m headed all the way east,” Molly says.

Caleb opens his mouth to respond, and then stops, tilts his head. “You are lying.” Interesting choice in timing for Mollymauk to follow through on that particular agreement.

“And if I was?”

“You’re a terrible liar. Take me up on my offer.”

That garnered him a smile, if only a small one. “Oh, so it’s an offer now, is it? Didn’t sound like it when you mentioned it the first time.”

Inwardly, Caleb cringes. “I have caught you in a lie, the _least you can do_ is allow me my eccentricities, hmm? If I want to drive you to the other side of the continent, then I very well will do so.”

“Whether I like it or not?” There’s a hint of amusement there, as though he’s still trying to keep his staunch refusal but can’t quite manage it. “Be awfully hard to force me, rail thin as you are.”

Caleb breathes deeply through the insinuation and meets Mollymauk’s salacious expression head on. “It will not come to that, because you can hardly believe your luck that I have offered to this at all. It never even floated through your mind to consider the possibility, I’m sure. But I know you,” the words come fast than he can think them through, shoot forth into the space between them without his approval. “I know that to pass up this offer would be lunacy and you are not a lunatic.”

“Aren’t I?” he chooses to respond, saving Caleb from having to address the fact that he’d seconds before claimed to ‘know’ someone he’d only just met scant hours ago.

“No. No, you are not.”

Fine brows draw inwards and Molly’s lips – Caleb’s transfixed, they’re a little more plum than before, now that’s warmed up – curl, but not into a smile. “So say you.”

Static is all that fills the air, the television’s white noise.

Molly’s chest rises and falls, heavily, in the silence and Caleb awaits, like a prisoner in for judgement.

“You said there’s a spare room then?”

It feels like a dismissal. He doesn’t know why he’s disappointed, but he is.

“Ja.”

Displacing the cat is always hard, but Caleb drops Frumpkin onto the ground at his feet before rising. The remote is on the end table, and he grabs it just to press the power button for the tv screen, leaving the rest running. What light was left in the room winks out with a static hiss. It feels like an ending. An ending that Caleb cannot fathom, to a beginning that’s never begun.

Silently, Caleb leads Mollymauk to the back of the house. Pushing open the door, he flicks the switch and stands aside. It’s meagre, really, but more than enough for any visitors. Warm blankets layer the bed atop the duvet, and a lamp stands on an end table in the corner, and there’s even an old chest of drawers with a mirror attachment at the top. Antique, but still more than useful.

“The bathroom is just the next room down. If you need something, please let me know.”

He’s about to turn and flee when Molly’s hand lands on his arm, holding him back.

“Thank you, Caleb.”

The corners of his mouth twitch as he looks at Caleb, a wrinkle forming just at the bridge of his nose. But it appears that he has nothing more to say.

“You are welcome, Mollymauk.”

It’s not really what he wanted to say at all, but somehow ‘nein, thank _you_ ’ doesn’t seem like it would go over very well. Ducking his head deferentially, Caleb tugs his arm back with little resistance and retreats down the hallway towards his own bedroom.

Though he doesn’t turn, he can feel Mollymauk’s eyes on him, as sharp as an arrow in the back.


	2. 2. Joy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished it! And before the new year too! Gute Rutsche, all!
> 
> (There's a non graphic sex scene about midway through the chapter)

2.

In the darkness of his room, Caleb lets the shadows cushion him into sleep. The dream that takes him is familiar and just as terrible as ever. His father and father, smiling at him, holding him close, petting his hair. There’s never anything more to it, just the memory of their voices, their faces, but it’s enough to wake him in the night, tears streaking down his cheeks.

Frumpkin is no longer in the room Blearily, he blinks at the clock, trying to make out the hands against the face by the vague light of the moon. He’s been asleep no longer than two hours, and somehow, he knows he’s not about to fall asleep again, at least not any time soon.

It’s like a rock in his shoe, prickling persistently, keeping him from thinking about anything else.

So gently, he almost misses it, there’s a knock at his door.

Swallowing hard, Caleb climbs out of bed, pulling at the overlong sleeves of his sleep shirt as he shuffles to the door. It’s open a crack – he always leaves it that way, just so that Frumpkin can go in and out, while keeping the space warmer by insulating it with the shut door.

Mollymauk stands on the other side.

He’s wearing a pair of maroon sweats and an overlarge black shirt that is emblazoned with the name of some extreme metal band that Caleb cannot make heads or tails of. It doesn’t seem like the sort of item his guest would have picked for himself, but making sense of it isn’t the foremost thing on his mind.

“Sorry,” is the first thing Mollymauk says, opening his mouth to continue explaining, but pauses, concern overshadowing his earlier contriteness. “Are you alright?” Almost absently, Caleb watches Molly’s strong, though slender hand rise towards his face before stopping to hover there, between them.

Whatever expression he wears must startle Mollymauk, because he flinches back, blinks rapidly, and sucks in a breath. “Sorry,” he repeats. “I didn’t mea- I shouldn’t’ve- I’ll just-“ he lifts a finger. “Go.” It falls jerkily from his usually loquacious tongue.

The moment is charged with ever spark of possibility that has ever been generated into the universe. Caleb can feel it, arcing through him, electric.

"Don't go."

When did his hand find the warm flesh of Mollymauk's arm - more intimate for strangers than ever Caleb has been?

"Don't go."

Mollymauk says nothing. Simply stares, and Caleb’s acutely aware of the soft ruby glow of those gemlike eyes as they fix upon him unwaveringly.

Who is this who draws a perfect stranger forward into the sanctum of his bedroom? Who slips his hand down into Mollymauk’s their fingers tangling?

Caleb doesn’t know. If he looked in a mirror, he wouldn’t recognize himself.

“I don’t want to be alone.” Whose voice speaks those aching, empty words? Surely not his own. They’re chest to chest now, practically breathing one another’s air, just like in the kitchen at dinner. “Just…just for company. That’s all. That’s all.”

Trepidation rises the gorge in his throat, for Mollymauk still says nothing, simply breathing, deep, intense breaths as they stand there. There’s a shift; from his peripherals, Caleb notices the rise of Mollymauk’s free hand, half way up his torso, where it stays, fingers flexing.

And then, Molly steps forward, pressing Caleb back.

One step.

Two steps.

Three.

His knees hit the mattress, but he doesn’t buckle.

Visions flash through his mind, heightening his blood. How scandalous, how shocking, to let someone he barely knows ravish his mouth, tangle those dexterous and dangerous fingers in his hair, to press him back into the bed, to _feel_ another person, heart beating in time with his own, banishing loneliness and dark thoughts.

Mollymauk grasps him by the bicep, so gently the touch almost tickles, sending a thrilling shiver down his spine.

“You want me to stay?” Deep, lyrical, brandy in chocolate.

Caleb wants to cry again.

“Ja.”

“You’d best get under the covers, Mister Caleb. You’re shivering.”

With the slightest pressure, Caleb allows himself to be pressed down. The mattress has never been springy, and he doesn’t bounce, but Mollymauk follows him down, urging him into the bed, drawing the covers up and then, almost carefully, lays down atop the duvet, palatinate curls shushing over Caleb’s pillow.

He’s suffocating. He can’t breathe, lungs full of lilacs.

Red glowing eyes blink in the darkness.

“This alright?”

Caleb reminds himself that he needs to nod, if he’s going to respond, because his mouth is like cotton, his throat raw.

“Sleep, Mister Caleb.”

Everything feels so slow, but the desperate reach of his hand is not, where it tangles into the front of Mollymauk’s t-shirt, gripping and malforming the fabric beneath his fingers.

“You will be cold.”

Mollymauk shifts closer to him; as if to punctuate, Caleb can feel the heat, intense, rolling off of him.“I’ll be just fine.”

“I have three blankets here.” He does. Veth keeps buying them for him, as though she’s unsure that he can sustain his own body temperature. “You have none.”

If Mollymauk’s expression alters at all, Caleb cannot tell, but dutifully, he shifts, tugging the duvet out from under him and sliding under it. Less separates them now, but they’re still close – closer than Caleb has been to _anyone_ in longer than he can recall.

“That better?”

It’s all Caleb can do to nod. Then, hesitantly; “I’m- I- You don’t- Why are you doing this?”

They’re so close, Caleb thinks that for a moment he sees a glossy sheen overcome those inscrutable eyes. “Because I don’t want to be alone either.”

“Will you let me take you to Xhorhas tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Neither of them say a word after that for such an exceedingly long time that, were Caleb not looking right into Mollymauk’s eyes, wide open and shining, he might have thought he’d fallen asleep.

“Thank you, Mister Caleb,” Mollymauk’s voice is so low, it’s nearly a whisper.

“For what?”

“For asking me to read your tarot. Best thing that’s happened to me in at least a year.”

It’s distressing how easily Mollymauk says it, as though it’s not terrible. As though it’s not one of the saddest things Caleb has ever heard another person say all his life long. And he himself has said some pretty sad things in his time, he will knows.

“I’m sorry.” It feels so inconsequential. So meaningless. So trite.

“Don’t be.” And that’s the end of it. That’s all Mollymauk has to say. He shuts his eyes, the glow dissipating from where it baptized Caleb’s cheeks, and his soft breaths slowly even out.

Caleb finds the very thought of moving unbearable, so he stays that way all night, till his eyes adjust and he can see clearly the curl of the tattoo over the cheek that’s pressed into his pillow, the delicate fan of eyelashes, the gentle shift and flitter of a curl with ever breath Mollymauk takes. Eventually, it is enough.

Hand still clutching at Mollymauk’s shirt, Caleb succumbs to slumber.

At first, in the morning, he’s so sure it’s a dream that he almost burrows in closer. As it is, there isn’t much closer they can get, with two blankets between them. Mollymauk has flung arms over Caleb’s torso almost possessively, not that Caleb can find it in him to dismay such an act. There’s no pressure to this intimacy, no expectation, and he savours it, in the low, grey light of the thin morning sun. Frumpkin _mrrp_ s from somewhere behind his head, and Caleb feels the soft batting of a paw against his cheek.

 _Breakfast_ , the insistent touch demands.

Against him, Mollymauk groans. Curls tickle the sensitive skin of Caleb’s neck as Molly lifts himself from where he’d faceplanted sometime in the night. The arm that enveloped Caleb slides to the mattress on the opposite side, so when Molly finally rises, he’s trapped Caleb beneath him. Only after yawning, arching his back in a stretch and whipping his tail abortedly beneath the duvet, does Mollymauk open his eyes. And the moment he does, he stills completely, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

From beneath him, Caleb blinks back.

As if the trigger to his action, Mollymauk instantly falls back on his heels, hands up on his sides. The duvet slides off his back into a pile.

“I am _so_ -“

“You forgot.” Caleb presses his shoulders back as he sits up. A sharp, satisfying _pop-crack_ results. “There is no need to apologize.”

“Right.”

In nighttime. In darkness and shadow, truths are far less terrifying than they are in the light of day, no matter how feeble. Whatever words and delicate intimacies they’d shared so simply the night before are fled.

“So…” Molly trails off, carding his fingers through his haphazard curls. “I’m just going to-“ he runs a hand over his mouth, fingers pressing down the smile lines to either side of his mouth, glancing off his chin and coming to a point.

“Happy Winter’s Crest, Mister Mollymauk.”

There again, that acute tilt of the head, the feline twitch of curiosity.

“Happy Winter’s Crest, Mister Caleb. And it’s Molly. Molly to my friends.” He’d said it before. Introduced himself with as much. But this feels less rote and more…well, just _more._

Uncontentious, Caleb arches a brow. “Are we friends?”

A slow, considering blink. “I think so. Yes.”

Deeply, Caleb inhales, exhales. “Then, Happy Winter’s Crest, Molly. There is no rush. I will feed the whining child here,” he indicated Frumpkin, who batted at his hand. “But you may continue to sleep as you desire. What do prefer for breakfast?”

“Oh, no,” Molly retorts. “You should have the lie-in while I prep the food. You handled it last night. Only fair that it be my turn now.”

Caleb shakes his head in counter. “Ah, but you are my guest. Thus, there is no need of equal exchange. Please, what would you like?”

“I’ll do you one better. We’ll make breakfast together.”

And, so it goes. Molly doesn’t even have to argue the point; Caleb simply gives in.

Still in sleep things, and with the last dregs of night-sand at the corners of their eyes, they drag themselves still in their night things from the bed and troupe to the kitchen. Several minutes later, two steaming omelets grace their respective plates and Frumpkin is busy scarfing down a pate of liver, a special holiday treat.

“So, where exactly am I taking you then, since you did not get the chance to really elaborate last night,” Caleb asks nonchalantly as possible.

“Ah, well.” Molly reaches into the pocket of his sweats and drops a paper on the table between them. “That’s her address. Truth be told, I don’t actually know where in Xhorhas it is. All I know is that that’s where she is. I’ve never had opportunity to search it up on the net.”

It matters not to Caleb, who has studied maps for ages.

“It is not far. We can be there by nightfall if we leave within the hour.”

Genially, Molly nods. “And you’re sure?”

It’s too frequent a question now for it to be _just_ a matter of conscientiousness. There’s something hiding there, behind that question, beyond insecurity, beyond disbelief, but it’s not Caleb’s place to ask what it is. No matter if they have declared themselves friends, whatever friends means between strangers.

“ _Molly,_ ” Caleb chooses to say, very pointedly, and his guest lifts his hands in surrender.

“I just don’t understand, I guess. Why anyone would just pick to drive cross the country in terrible weather, for one, not to mention on a holiday. We could just… stay here. I can read more tarot, get a lift on the bus to the border.”

Briefly, there’s a flicker in his eyes, and Caleb suddenly gets the impression that Mollymauk is nervous and that it has nothing to do with him. He frowns, replaying the words as Molly funnels food into his mouth, moaning appreciatively. In another other moment, Caleb would have spent much more time appreciating that sound, but the word border echoes and suddenly, Caleb understands.

It’s been a day and an age since he left the Empire. He still has a passport. But Molly…

“Don’t worry. I will get you into the country.”

Molly’s fork clatters to the plate.

“‘scuse you?”

“It’s the passport, isn’t it. That’s why you don’t want me to drive you. Because once you get to the border, you will have to get creative.”

Mollymauk’s lilac complexion blanches to a pale lavender. He laughs a little, reflexively, nervous still. “You got me. Illegal immigrant incoming.”

He’s not lying, but there’s still more. Regardless, Caleb doesn’t push it. “I am not so squeaky clean myself, my friend. Do not worry. You cannot surprise me. Not in that regard.”

Whatever unease remains in Mollymauk, he submerges it beneath an affected disbelief. “That so?”

“Perhaps while we are driving, you might query me about it.”

“I might.” Molly narrows his eyes. “I haven’t got anything to pack. Let me clear the dishes.”

Caleb doesn’t fight him. As soon as their meals are finished, Mollymauk sets to work clearing the table and Caleb rushes to his room to handle things. The space is not so large and the walls are not so think that Caleb cannot hear the slowly rising tide of sound from the kitchen. Dishes clinking, the echo of glassware, the mostly in tune hum of Mollymauk above the running of the water.

It’s curiously domestic in a way that aches, deep in the cockles of Caleb’s heart and he finds that he wants something that he cannot define.

Briefly, he considers leaving his packing as it is, dropping the henley in his hands into a pile on the floor, turning on his heel, striding purposefully into the kitchen and turning on head Mollymauk’s own sensual confidence and pressing him into the countertop, sloshing the water in the sink. _Stay_ , he would say, all foolish fantasy. _Stay with me. Never leave._ Molly’s eyes would darken, his cheeks flush deeply, hands weak as Caleb would pull him in for a kiss that will rattle all sense from him utterly, dishes dropping, porcelain shattering upon the floor, hands in his hair, lips and teeth, pressing his leg between Molly’s thighs and-

Frumpkin hops onto Caleb’s bag, jostling him from his thoughts and the fantasy fades away.

He cannot had what he wants, and so, in place of it, he will give Mollymauk everything he needs.

Tarrying longer than he needs to, Caleb folds and refolds the spare few things he’s bringing until the water – and Mollymauk’s hum – cease and footsteps resound in the hallway. The moment he’s past, Caleb throws what is left haphazard into the bag, scoops Frumpkin up to curl him around his neck and rushes back into the kitchen to pack snacks and supplies for Frumpkin. Though he’s in a rush, he knows that he doesn’t miss anything; he’s taken enough trips with his cat to know precisely what he needs, and in minutes he’s pulling on his scarf and coat and is out the door.

“Oi!” Caleb hears. He looks up from the trunk of the Volkswagen to see Mollymauk holding one of his cornflower blue mittens in hand. “Drop something?” With nimble grace he trots down the stoop, cross the snow covered lawn and over to the car and holds out the wayward mitten, handing it over with a flourish and an artful bow.

“Ah, danke!”

Molly’s lips twitch in a half smiled. “Can’t have those fingers of yours getting frostbit, now can we?”

“N-nein.”

The wind buffets hard and Caleb shudders in the onslaught. But Molly only straightens, hefting his pack on his back. “Got my things. To the trunk or backseat with them?”

“Whichever.”

“I locked the door behind me, just so you know.”

He should take Molly to the bus stop and leave him there, buy him a ticket, let him call his friend to pick him up at the border, to smuggle his own way across. He should hand over his keys, tell Molly to take the car, take the supplies, take everything, to be safe, to leave, to find his better life.

“Well, if that is the case, then get in,” he says instead. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we can get you home.”

A wistful agony contorts Mollymauk’s beautiful features. His eyes grow glassy. “ _Home_.”

Ducking his head, Caleb looks away to hide his own agony, so very different in origin. So very uncalled for.

“Ja. Home.”

The first leg of their trip is genial enough. They talk – really talk – of everything and nothing and all things in between. Molly sings along to Caleb’s Pogue’s CD, and Caleb, eventually, is convinced to hum a little too. He speaks of Veth and Luc and Yeza and Molly explains his Yasha, speaking candidly on how they came to meet, how they found kindred spirits in one another, grown close.

“Neigh inseparable,” Molly finishes, but it doesn’t answer, precisely, how they came to be separated. When Caleb asks as much, Molly bites his lip. “Well. It’s complicated,” he says, but that’s all he says, and when Caleb glances away from the road to look at him, Molly is staring out the window vaguely, his expression in the reflection pensive. Abruptly, he picks back up though he doesn’t look away from the landscape as it passes beside them in a blur. Out of necessity, Caleb turns his attention back to the road.

“She’s married.” Molly continues abruptly. “Always was. I knew that, of course. Yasha and I…we’re not…we’re not like that. We never were. There was no expectation of the sort. We’re just…us. At any rate, she told me – she _believed_ – Zu was dead. Zuala, that is. Her wife. Turns out it was a whole big misunderstanding. At any rate, she went home to Xhorhas. Neither of us had the money for a passport for me and well…She needed her time with Zu, you know? I didn’t want to get in the way. I always intended to join her up again, you know, after they’d had time to get reacquainted with one another.”

“And now is that time?”

The silence is pregnant.

“I hope so.”

He cannot bear to hear Mollymauk so despondent. It belays every hope he’s somehow placed in Molly in the span of such a short, intense time.

“It is so. I will get you there. And she will be happy to see you. I know it.”

It’s been forever and an age since Caleb’s felt something so strongly that it thrums through him with every heartbeat. Anyone that would turn Molly away would be a fool, and someone Molly seems to regard so dearly could never be a fool.

Never.

“Looks like the weather’s rolling in.”

Mollymauk isn’t wrong. The world around them has gone from grey to white, snowflakes finally starting to splat against the windshield. He sighs and flips the wipers on with the headlights as the storm thickens.

By midday, Caleb is too focused on the road to spend any time in conversation. Occasionally, Mollymauk will help him with a sign, but eventually, they’ll have to stop, if not for the weather, then for Frumpkin. They’re almost directly north of Felderwin when Caleb pulls onto the offramp.

“We need to wait it out. I am sorry, we will not make it to Xhorhas before dark.”

The silk of Molly’s coat rustles as he shrugs. “No worries. It’s not like Yasha knows I’m coming. So long as you’re alright with it taking longer, that’s all that really matters.”

Foot barely on the pedal, Caleb creeps the car forward through the white out and into the parking lot of a Thaydeen’s Endless Emporium. There’s not a soul on the road that Caleb can see, not a single car parked anywhere nearby. Others were a bit more wise, so it seems, but Caleb hadn’t bothered to look at the weather before suggesting it, nor even that morning, in his rush to escape the desperate facsimile of domestic bliss, that delicate and untenable fantasy Caleb could only dream into reality.

“Well,” Molly says, slipping his hand beneath the seat to pull the bar and slide it on it’s tracks backward that he might recline, stretch his long, strong legs. Caleb’s eyes lock on the tensing of those muscles beneath the material of Molly’s teal jeans, the pull of his thin shirt where its hem sits over the beltline of the waist. “Nothing for it but to get comfortable, hey?”

“Ja, so it would seem.”

“Never been in weather like this before.” Arms crossing, Molly swings them up and nestles them behind his neck. “Pretty wild, innit? That snow can fall so think that the world turns utterly white.” Only just opening his mouth to reply, Caleb cut off when Molly pulled an arm away to point. “Look! Someone else has the same idea as you. Does this happen a lot?”

Caleb pressed his eyes shut tightly, but the brightness of the snow still seems through his eyelids. “Often enough, ja. We Zemnians, we are so used to these conditions, we think we can drive in them, you know? Like arrogant fools. And then, here we are, parked and waiting it out anyways.”

A soft chuckle brings him to open his eyes again, and there is Molly, lounging in the passenger seat, looking at back him as if, for all the wide world, there was no where else he’d rather be.

A thing which Caleb knows is untrue.

“How long do you think we’ll be here?”

“Could be a while.”

Molly’s gaze is unwavering. The tips of Caleb’s ears are burning for it, heating down to his cheeks and across his neck. He looks away, down at the steering wheel, it's leather worn matte.

“Well," Molly starts, the syllables lingering in the air like a perfume. "I can’t say I’m complaining. Gives me more time with you.”

No matter how he tries, Caleb cannot school himself enough to stem the sharp inhale at the words. The steering wheel isn’t nearly interesting enough to keep his attention, so instead he lets his gaze flicker up, out the windshield into the blinding white of the blizzard. Maybe, that way, when he inevitably looks back to the passenger seat, he might not be able to see save for the glowing multicoloured blotches of light in his vision. There’s a shift again, Molly sitting up, perhaps.

“Caleb…”

Staunchly he stares out and the blanches landscape, unwavering, even when a slender, lilac hand slides into his vision, hovering just over his own hand where it rests upon his thigh.

The air is thick. Hot. Too hot.

“Tell me what’s in your mind.”

The hand still lingers there, waiting, _waiting-_

“Tell me what goes on in there. I can see you thinking.” A long moment, stretching endlessly into the abyss. “I see you thinking every time you look at me. Cogs moving in there so furiously I’d think it must hurt.”

His throat is tight, his heart pounding.

“Now, I know I’m attractive, and we both know that _you_ are attractive. And I can’t say that I also haven’t thought about it. You know. Constantly. Since the moment we first met. And you couldn’t stop looking at my mouth. I notice these things. And you were a perfect gentleman all night long, which says just about all I need to know when it comes to your character. Hells, you’re _driving me_ to another country with the intent to _smuggle me in_ without thought to the consequences. You’re a dream, Caleb, a perfect dream, and I can’t believe I’ve had such fortune to meet you. I meant it. What I said, before. About you being the best thing that’s happened to me all year.”

Mollymauk is still _leaning_ , and Caleb can’t believe he hasn’t yet keeled over for lack for breath; his bones feel rigid, his muscles taut, and theirs is Molly just to his right, breath hot and _leaning_ , _insistently_ leaning. Waiting.

“Why should you be lonely, Mister Caleb, when I’m here beside you?”

A sound escapes Caleb’s lips, something wretched, maybe desperate, but the semantics of it aren’t important to Caleb because Molly’s hand is still there hovering above his own, waiting for permission to touch, to caress.

“Tell me to stop, and we can just sit here and talk of nothing, or I’ll even get out and just wander the store, find another ride if that’s what you’d prefer. I won’t feel insulted, or be angry with you. Cross my heart. All you have to do is say the word. Say the word, and I’m gone, or-“ For the first time, Mollymauk’s lyrical voice hitches. “Or say the word, and neither of us have to be lonely for a few, desperate…passionate hours.”

Something settles in Caleb then, though he’s not sure what it is precisely that allows him to form the words, but he opens his mouth and speaks and what comes out – while it’s exactly what he mean to say – still leaves him in disbelief of himself; he hasn’t said anything so forward in _years_. Hasn’t had the cause to do so. And yet, it leaves his lips anyways. “If you think I can last for hours, you highly overestimate me. I am not so young as I once was, nor perhaps so young as you believe me to be.”

Molly laughs, and there’s only a spot of trembling hesitation before he _finally_ lets his hand fall upon Caleb’s. (It’s warm. Searing. It feels right.) “And perhaps I’m not so young as you believe me to be.”

Swiftly, Caleb turns his head. Molly is right there, eyes lidded, cheeks a dusky palatinate, chapped lips parted as he puffs a strangled breath. It is but the work of a moment to close the distance between them, to press his own lips to Molly’s with unbounded and unexpected urgency, to take that lovely face between his hands, rub the apples of those prominent cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. A note of surprise springs from Mollymauk, but it’s followed by the tangling of his fingers in Caleb’s hair, tugging gently. Easily, Caleb allows himself to be guided, to be pulled, ever so gently, across the center console and into Molly’s lap.

It’s not easy – he’d not pushed back his own seat, wonders if perhaps this was simply luck or the presence of grand forethought on Molly’s part, though Caleb’s fairly certain it’s the latter – but Caleb swings his own gangling legs over and finds himself sitting, knees to either side of Molly’s thighs.

Just as he is in everything else – especially in his speech – Molly’s hands are nimble, quickly tripping from the back of Caleb’s head, down to his back, almost clawing, raking at the wool of his peacoat before passing to his chest, working urgently at the buttons there, tugging at the scarf, even as they press into one another, teeth and tongues, breath and skin. And desire, heady, smokey desire.

His own hands are busy propping himself up; Caleb can feel the shaking strain in his core as they’re pulled away from the headrest of the seat so that Molly can tug the sleeves of his coat down his arms, riding him of the bulky thing. Where his scarf has gone, Caleb doesn’t know, nor care – it’s but a single thought in a deluge of them; the silk of Molly’s hair between his fingers, the rough touch of Molly’s hands, sliding up beneath his henley, the hot pressure building between them as Caleb rocks above Molly, the graze of an extra sharp incisors against the delicate skin of his lip, the rapid rise and fall of Molly’s chest, the tightening wrap of his tail around Caleb’s ankle. All these things war for predominance in Caleb’s mind, but they distill down quickly when he feels a tug at his belt, unbuckling rapidly in Molly’s hands.

“Tell me –“ A kiss. “- to stop.”

Caleb whines, words failing him, pressing back in for another kiss in answer, and wrapping his arms about Mollymauk’s neck.

Questing hands push his pants and boxers over his hips, reach back to palm his ass as he is bared to the humid air of the car. Logic catches up with him and Caleb releases his hold on Molly’s shoulders to fumble with the button on Molly’s jeans.

“Sit up.”

Caleb leverages himself, knees creaking a bit, as beneath him, Molly lifts his own hips, shimmying a bit to help Caleb in achieving his goal. A taloned hand finds the back of his neck, tugging him down and Caleb has to sit back to steady himself, hand finding purchase on Molly’s shoulder.

“You’re beautiful,” Molly says softly as he looks up at Caleb. But to Caleb, it is Molly who is beautiful, wrecked, lashes dark, lips bruised, long, slender throat bared. He’s so wrapped up in it, Caleb startles a bit when Molly wraps a hand around them both, touch loose, though his palm sears with heat. A strangling gasp wrenches itself from Caleb’s throat and he knocks his head forward, resting it against Molly’s. “You’re beautiful. So beautiful.” The words are a rasp, choked and harsh as Molly begins to work them over, hand moving smoothly, deliberately. Caleb rocks with him, best as he can, and tries not to think about the adulations being heaped upon him in words, in touch. “I wish you could see yourself, Caleb. You’re stunning. Positively stunning. How lucky I am-” He twists his wrist and they both gasp. “-that you’re here now, with me.” 

Molly’s touch is unbearably perfect. Rapidly, Caleb loses himself. Whatever words Mollymauk speaks are meaningless to his ears, sensation and emotion overwhelming him utterly. Like the welling and rise of a tsunami, Molly crashes over him, the wave to his shore. Willingly, Caleb drowns in him until they are both spent, gasping into one another’s mouths, no longer proper kisses so much as simply the brush of lips.

Lips which move senselessly against his own.

Eventually, cognition returns to Caleb and the syllables of whisper catalyze into shapes and words.

“ – ‘s it, Love, _shhh_ , that’s it, that’s it, that’s it…”

Caleb tips his head up, presses one last tender kiss to Molly’s hairline, and lets out a final sigh before reaching back behind the seat.

“Tissue,” he explains and hears a little sound of assent as he pulls back, holding the package.

“Handy.” Mollymauk nods, lips twitching into a smile before leaning in to press a kiss to Caleb’s jawline. It surprises him and he almost draws back, but allows Molly to continue in his curious actions as Caleb cleans them up.

“Sometimes, I take Luc to school.” It’s odd now, talking so benignly. “He’s had a cold the past week.” 

“Sweet of you.”

Caleb tosses the dirtied tissue into the little garbage he keeps in the back and then, finally, for his thighs are trembling, rests back in Molly’s lap as Molly sets to tucking himself away and righting is own trousers. With a glance, Caleb takes in the state of things outside the car. Still white and wintry, the windows now fogged with the heat of their tryst. A tap at his wrist brings him back.

“Caleb?”

“Hm?” He glances back to Molly, gorgeous, disheveled, bewitching Molly.

“Want some help there?”

“Ah.”

As deftly as he had undone them, Molly tugs Caleb’s pants back up over his hips and does up the zipper and button, arching a brow with a smirk. Just like that, Caleb thinks, it’s over.

One and done.

He doesn’t know why his heart constricts at the thought. But as he moves to slide back into his own seat, Molly’s hands tighten their hold over his waist. “In such a rush? I, ah, like a little pillow talk after, if you know what I mean? Unless you’d… rather not?”

A little tentative, Caleb lowers himself back down, but Molly tilts his head, raises his brows again.

“Come on, get comfortable. Pillow talk is meant to be comfortable.”

With a considering breath, Caleb frowns a bit but concedes, shifting about awkwardly until he’s leaning back against Molly, whose arms wrap around him, and their heads rest together.

“I am not sure this is comfortable,” Caleb says but there’s humour in his tone and they chuckle together a bit. “But I don’t mind. It’s…nice.”

“Nice?”

There’s a searching quality to Molly’s tone. Even if Caleb can’t really see him that well at this angle, he can tell that Molly’s looking up at him, curious, mischievous.

“It has been a long time since I have held by anyone.”

“Does last night not count?” Caleb can hear the smile in his voice. “No, but I know what you mean. Been a while for me too.”

Feeling a bit foolish, Caleb nuzzles his head against Molly’s. He doesn’t know what to say that doesn’t feel too…too much in consequence of his raw nerves and he finds he cannot continue speaking so intimately, even though he’d begun it himself. “You are good with your hands.” A snort answers him, though good-natured. “I speak only the truth. You have been very kind to me.”

“Kindness? Is that what people’re calling it these days?”

“That is not what I-“

“I know.” Molly says, suddenly serious. “I know what you meant. I hope you don’t think that’s the only reason why I-“

“I do not.” He doesn’t know why he feels the need to rush his reassurance. “Do not worry. I could tell…it-“ He stops himself, less trailing off than cutting off. “Meant. Something.”

“To me.”

“To you.”

Against his back, Caleb can feel the thrum of Molly’s heart as it ticks up a pace. He doesn’t know what it means. Isn’t sure he wants to reflect on it any further than he already has. After all, in the space of but half a day, Mollymauk will be home where he belongs and Caleb will be headed home where _he_ belongs and that will be the end of it.

Practicality necessitates it. One quick romp in the car and an evening’s platonic comfort does not grand or romantic make and well, if he’s honest with himself, it’s not something he’s looking for. Caleb’s life is fine as it is. There’s nothing wrong with going to work, and eating with the Brenattos twice a week, and sometimes watching Luc. At least every other day, he laughs a genuine laugh. He engages in conversations, gifts presents on birthdays and anniversaries. He has friends. His life is not _less_ for not having a partner.

But the edge of loneliness still creeps up on him anyways.

He’s not entirely sure that Molly makes it go away so much as he’s held it at bay. Because the loneliness knows the truth, just as Caleb does.

By nightfall, Molly will be gone.

In the moment, however, he’s real and warm and holding Caleb close, embrace genuinely tight though gentle. 

“So…” Molly says, tone leading again. “The Seven of Cups.”

It takes Caleb a moment to latch onto his meaning. “Ah, ja.”

“Was this your way of taking its advice?”

“ _Was_?”

Molly shrugs. When his arms go up, Caleb’s sleeves do too. It tickles, but Caleb finds he sort of likes it. The distraction, however, doesn’t last.

“Me, I mean.”

The moment it registers, Caleb turns, best as he can to look Molly in the face, no matter how awkward the angle. “Nein! I mean-Well-“

“It’s alright if it was!” Molly adds, almost placating. “Don’t think I’ll be offended. Just, well, I get the feeling that ‘this’-“ he loosed his grip and made a general gesture, hands waving deliberately in the air around them. “- is about as far from a typical, ordinary, organized Caleb-day as is imaginable.”

Molly has him there. It’s so true, Caleb feels compelled to tell him so. “You have me there,” he says. “But that was not why.”

In truth, he’d forgotten.

Caleb didn’t forget many things, but Molly it seemed, was inspiring a new trend. Closing his eyes, Caleb tries to recall every piercingly sensuous moment of their tryst, but finds that he cannot, so lost as he was to the sensation and emotion. It’s never happened before, he realizing, blinking blankly at the thought.

Not with Astrid.

Not with Wolf.

Not with anyone, except Molly.

Filing it away for further contemplation later, Caleb sighs and settles back in, glad for the companionship, no matter how finite.

“Why then, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Perhaps its Molly’s bluntness Caleb so likes. Perhaps not. Usually, things that leave him flushed are not things he would associate with arousing so much as embarrassing. He heaves a breath to answer, though he hasn’t a clue what to say, when Molly stops him.

“You don’t have to tell me.” He turns his head away from Caleb, towards the driver’s side of the car. Caleb imagines him staring out the window, eyes hazed, indifferent. “I don’t need to know.”

 _But you deserve to, even though I myself do not understand why_.

All he says is, “Danke.”

It feels like cheating, especially when Molly hugs him all the tighter.

“I wish I were young again,” Caleb says out of the blue, surprising even himself. “Were I young again, I’d pull you into the backseat and let you have your way with me until the snow stopped. And that could be a long time.”

A kiss, unprompted, unanticipated, lands at his jugular, silken soft curls shushing over the headrest and against his cheek.

“I’m flattered, Love.”

“I am thirty-three this year. Almost thirty-four.” Mollymauk’s hum rumbles against his shoulder, but that’s all. Not dismissal. Acknowledgement, perhaps. Funny, Caleb expected more of a reaction, but he finds he’s not disappointed for the lack of one, so instead, he keeps talking, though it feels more like rambling than conversation. “My knees creak and my wrists hate me and my pocket book cries when I arrive at the chiropractor’s every two weeks.”

“You just need someone to keep your joints loose more often.”

It’s an innuendo if Caleb has ever heard one and he lived in a dormitory with other boys, so he’s heard _many_.

“I will take it under consideration,” he replies very seriously, and then pauses for effect. Seconds later, they break into simultaneous laughter, light and easy as though they’ve been doing so for years.

In his heart, deep, deep in secret places, Caleb wishes they could.

“If you’re waiting to hear my age, you’ll not pry it out of me for all the world. S’far as I’m concerned, the rest of the world can think I’m twenty-two forever.” Something about the joviality of Molly’s tone falls false on Caleb’s ears, but instead of calling him on it, Caleb lets it go. Why should he tell the truth, even if Caleb can tell it’s a lie? It’s unimportant, and if it makes Mollymauk more comfortable, then Caleb isn’t about to tear that veil away.

“You sound like Veth,” he says instead. “I am older than her, but she is a mother, so she tells me that she automatically gains years over me for that alone. She says that tutting over Luc and myself ages her a year a minute.”

“That so?”

Maybe it’s his imagination, but Caleb thinks there’s something like relief in the way Molly’s hold on his relaxes.

“It is. Sometimes, I do not think she is wrong. Luc is very…rambunctious. And well, I make her fret quite frequently. But if she did not have us to fret over, she would get bored, I think. And Yeza welcomes it. If she is too busy fretting over us, she cannot have too much time to fret over him.” He grins, just thinking about them. “They are a very sweet couple. I have hardly seen happier, nor more in love.”

“Do you wish for that someday?”

“Sometimes. Do you?”

From his peripherals, Caleb catching a quirk of Molly’s lips. “Sometimes.”

Silence descends on them, and for a while, they simply breathe, comfortable and content in one another’s arms. Caleb’s almost half asleep when Molly speaks again.

“Snow’s letting up.”

“Oh. Ja. It is.”

And that’s that.

They rummage around for Caleb’s coat and scarf, shifting so he can maneuverer his way back to the driver’s seat, and just as quickly as he’d fallen into Mollymauk’s lap, Caleb’s turning the key and throwing the car into gear as they drive off again.

A bitter taste fills Caleb’s mouth. Like something’s died. It makes him want to cry. Instead, he grits his teeth, turns up the heat and clicks the signal as they merge back onto the autobahn heading to Xhorhas.

The whole rest of the ride to the border, Molly doesn’t ask him about his past with the people smuggling. Even when they stop off at a truck stop and pack Molly into the false trunk, he doesn’t ask Caleb about it in passing. Simply nods and smiles thinly, though genuinely, and doesn’t complain a whit.

It’s too quiet when Caleb pulls away again. Barely twenty fours hours in one another’s company and already Caleb’s used to the inane, sociable prattle that Molly seems endlessly able to scrounge from the conversational ether. Like every time he’s done it, Caleb makes it to the checkpoint and beyond without any fanfare and twenty minutes down the road, he turns off at a motel to pop Molly back out of the trunk.

“Chilly back there,” is the first thing Molly says once they’re in the car again. The moment Caleb starts it up, Molly redirects the vents and holds up his hands against them, heaving a sigh of relief. “No trouble?”

“None whatsoever. I told you, I am adept at this.”

“So you did.”

Still, Molly doesn’t question him about it, no matter how much Caleb fishes. It’s curious. He thought for sure that Molly would ask, considering how intrigued he’d been the night before. In the end, he lets it go; there’s no point really. It’s not like Caleb actually wants to talk about his illicit youth, and there are better ways to spend what time they have left.

Several hours later, well into the darkness of early winter evenings, Caleb pulls through the drive through of an unfamiliar fast food joint and they eat in relative silence as they continue to plug away at the miles that separate Mollymauk from his Yasha.

Thinking about their reunion does something to Caleb that he can’t put into words. It’s warmth and pain and softness simultaneously. So he tries to put it from his mind. Eventually, their conversation – about the merits of having flat pillows versus fluffy ones, a rather intense debate – peters out and Molly’s breaths grow soft and even. A quick glance confirms that Caleb’s passenger has fallen asleep. Caleb doesn’t begrudge him the rest, but years of reading late into the night have desensitized Caleb to the extremity of the hours spent on the road and he focuses all his attention on following the Xhorhassian roadsigns instead of sneaking glances as the peacefully slumbering Mollymauk.

He’s as beautiful in the golden light of the occasional road lamp as he was in the blue light of the tv the night before.

After the first swerve back to his own lane, Caleb keeps his attention very firmly on the road ahead of him and off of his attractive companion. It wouldn’t do, after all, to fuck it up by sending them skidding through the snow and into a cement block barrier.

No, that wouldn’t do at all.

Eventually, he gets off the freeway and cruises through the mostly empty streets of a fairly urban area before it too fizzles and the emptiness of the rural landscape opens up around them. Another hour and a half later, they enter a sleepy little town and Caleb checks and double checks the turns as he winds his way through to the modest neighbourhood which Molly’s slip of paper indicates as Yasha’s.

For a moment – fleeting, but terrible – Caleb imagines Mollymauk ringing the bell, only for a total stranger to answer it, to tell him that he doesn’t know a Yasha. But the mailbox at the end of the drive reads ‘Nydoorin’, which Molly’d said was her last name, and the fear dissipates, only to be replaced with something much, much worse.

The mingled cohabitants of joy, jealousy, disappointment, and shame.

He parks along the roadside, instead of on the drive. For a long while, he simply sits there, car still running, lights on, watching Molly as he slumbers blissfully.

It’s selfish, but he does it anyways. A few more moments won’t matter to Mollymauk, not when he sleeps so deeply, so completely.

But all things end, and so, with heavy heart, Caleb leans over and gently shakes Molly into wakefulness.

“Wach auf, Schatzi,” he says, taking the liberty. Molly had called him ‘Love’ more than once, after all, though somehow, Caleb felt that, coming from Molly, pet names were more of a banality than they were from his own lips. “We are here.”

Groaning, Molly surfaced from the dredge of a deep sleep. “C’leb. ‘a time’s it?”

“Not so late. Nine-thirty. We made good time. The Krynn do a nice job clearing their streets.”

At that, Molly sits up, all trace of sleep seemingly gone. “We’re here?”

“Ja, we are here.”

Molly’s deep, shaky breath fills the mute silence of the vehicle, surpassing the white-electric hum and subtle rumbling of the engine.

With a click, he undoes his seatbelt and wraps a hand around the door handle before turning, fixing Caleb with his gaze, that razor sharp red light glowing dully in the dark interior of the car. “Thank you.”

It’s weighty. Burdened under the yoke of things implied. Things unsaid. Things that will never pass between them again. They were, after all, but celestial bodies in passing orbit, Molly an asteroid to his planetary rotation. The single moment of surprise in a decade.

Only when Molly pops the door open does Caleb realize that Molly’d been waiting for a response Caleb had never given.

But it’s too late. The moment is passed.

Molly grabs his bag from the back, shuts both doors firmly and starts up the drive, squaring his shoulders as he goes.

From the car, Caleb watches him, affixed to his seat. A light flicks on in the house. Then, the door flies open. There’s a pause, where Molly stops, halfway there. For a moment, Caleb wonders and then it’s over.

A figure, tall, imposing yet still distinctively feminine, runs from the stoop. Molly drops his bag, dashes forward two steps and is suddenly enveloped in a hug that lifts him off his feet. If there are words between them, cries of gladness, tears of relief and joy, Caleb cannot tell. From the dead silence of his car, he feels empty, dispassionate, his every emotion siphoned away with Molly’s departure.

It is enough.

It has to be.

Easily as turning a page in a book, Caleb puts the car into gear and drives away.

He doesn’t look back.

Three blocks away, he stops to wait for traffic. Everything is a daze around him. Colours and lights brightly aesthetic in the evening gloom shine like holiday baubles. Most houses are behind him now. In their windows, golden with the warmth of hearthfire or blue and cold with the glow of a television, families altogether sat portraitlike behind the glass to his distant observer.

Veth comes to mind, and he wonders briefly, why he ever turned down her offer to join them in Felderwin. It could have been him there, hidden within the wrapping box of a home with people who hold him as family. But it’s not.

He was meant to stay behind, for Molly. And through Molly – _only_ through Molly – would he ever have been able to come to such a conclusion. Only through Molly has the realization struck him.

A car passes languorously by, it’s headlights a streak through the lightly drifting flakes of new snow that descend onto his windshield, half to melting. Though the coast is clear, he makes no move to start forward, his hand clasped at two and ten to the steering wheel.

“I don’t want to be alone.” He says it aloud and this time, he finds that not only does he mean it, but all thoughts of self-sabotage filter away.

When he’s home, he will tell Veth. He will lift Luc into his arms and tell his nephew that he loves him. He will thank Yeza for sharing his family all these long years. He will call Beauregard and tell her that she is like a sister and that she should move in with him like they’ve long talked about.

It’s worth it.

In his haze, he can’t even recall what the point in distancing himself was anymore. His parents loved him; they wouldn’t have wanted him to torture himself. They’d have wanted him to be happy.

Loved.

It is with new vigor that Caleb sets his jaw and puts foot timorously to pedal as he starts to inch out into the turn, craning his neck to the right to geta clear look down the road past the treeline when movement from his peripherals catches his attention and he slams down hard on the break.

The momentum jerks him back in the seat, but it’s hardly what startles him. There, lit only by the beams of his headlights, curls snow-tossed by the wind, stands Mollymauk, hands on the hood of his car, expression wild, chest heaving.

In shock, Caleb stares back at him an impression little children in the school yard.

Muffled, Molly speaks. “Unlock the door.”

It’s all Caleb can do to blink. Fumbling a bit, he goes to do as he’s told, but the door is already unlocked – he hadn’t bothered to do it back up after Molly’s left. He’d forgotten about it completely. Hands still on the car, Molly sidesteps to the passenger side, flinging the door open and sliding it, slamming it shut behind him.

Eyes wide and glowing, teeth bared, he fixes Caleb, a petrified butterfly beneath his pin.

“Eh _sorry_ ,” he says, though he sounds anything but. Caleb gets the sense he’s missing something, but his joints are still locked, thick with the rust of his own surprise. “But _what_ d'you think you're at!?”

His accent has thickened, voice raised, and Caleb flinches on instinct alone.

“Where d’you think you’re going? What d’you got in your daft, eejit head to just drive off like that?”

“I-I-“

What is he supposed to do, to say?

It doesn’t matter, because Mollymauk leans over the console, takes Caleb’s face in his hands and pulls him in, kissing him fiercely. Every iota of Caleb’s being feels on fire with the intensity of it. It’s not hard to give in, to sink his weight into Molly’s hold, to let himself be ravaged with infinite tenderness, the passion of the kiss heightened by its utter simplicity – just their lips pressed together firm, unyielding, and yet delicate. No teeth, no tongues, not even the sharp bit of Molly’s taloned nails raking through his hair.

If the world ends during the kiss, Caleb misses it.

But it’s over as quickly as it’s begun, Molly pulling back, though he still hold his palms pressed to Caleb’s cheeks.

“Don’t leave.” It’s as much plea as it is imperative. “Don’t leave. Turn the car ‘round. Park in Yasha’s drive, then get out the car and come in with us. Stay, Caleb.” Molly eyes are bright. So impossibly bright. “Stay.”

So loud is the pounding of Caleb’s heart that he’s sure Molly can hear it clear as a bell.

“Stay with _me_.”

Only when he feels the burn of it does Caleb realize that his eyes are brimming with hot tears. Unbidden, unnecessary, illogical.

“ _Please_.”

His jaw works, but nothing comes out.

“I want you to.”

That time, the _stay_ is implied. As though Molly cannot bear to utter it again.

Chest heaving, Caleb forces his jaw to function, his heart to dislodge from where it blocks off his throat, his tears to fade instead of spilling over like the traitors they always are.

When he finally manages to speak, it’s barely more that a breath.

“Okay.”

Molly’s thumbs rub circles over his cheeks, tenderly, eyes widening in disbelief, smile cracking through like the sun in a thunderstorm.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Without warning, he’s pulled forward, Molly’s arms flung about him and they rest there, together, Molly’s face pressed into his shoulder best as he can, the spiral of his horns considering. It’s different, somehow, from earlier that day, and yet the same. The intensity of their embrace. Still unconditional, still open and unjudging, but it feels like more, somehow, in ways that Caleb is not sure he will ever come to understand.

Molly’s breath hitches against the delicate skin of Caleb’s neck and it’s suddenly as though his glass is overtipped, the forces of his emotion spilling over; what he hadn’t even realized he was holding back floods forward, unable to be contained any longer. Dryly, he sobs into the silken tangle of curls, babbling like a child, _danke, danke, danke,_ until words fail him and they just hold one another, utterly still.

Maybe a minute passes before the ache in Caleb’s ankle, foot still pressed down hard on the break, tugs him from the comfortable serenity of Molly’s hold.

“We are in the middle of the road.” It’s the first coherent thing he’s said the whole while, Caleb realizes belatedly.

Molly just laughs; it’s a terrible laugh. Truly awful. And Caleb’s never heard a sound more beautiful. Somehow, he doubts that he ever will.

“I’m not leaving this car until you do. Roll the window down, I’ve got to tell Yasha that we’re heading back home.”

Caleb smiles. He makes no move to rolls the window down and Molly fixes him with a curious glance.

“What is it?”

The hour is late. The roads are empty. He will have to call Veth, but tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. She’ll call him a fool, threaten Mollymauk in many creative ways, sigh happily in the end. Molly will love her. He’s sure of it. They’ll figure it out, eventually, the semantics, that is. They have time. What’s a further minute or two?

“ _Home_ ,” Caleb repeats, and pulls Mollymauk in for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, it goes without saying that they stop and take care of Frumpkin whenever necessary and most of the time, he's just asleep in the back seat because that's just what a typical cat does okay yes I forgot about Frumpkin it's fine its too late now it doesn't matter.


End file.
